


Wondering ‘bout the ground below

by Mirror_Face



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Banter, Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Oneshot, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26311954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirror_Face/pseuds/Mirror_Face
Summary: “So, what’s the plan here?” Maki asked, though Kaito didn’t know who she was asking specifically. Probably him, considering he was the leader, but Shuichi was also incredibly smart, “Should we call the fire department and wait for them to get him down? Like a housepet.”“Hey! I’m not some lame animal! I can get down myself.”Shuichi just laughed awkwardly, if a little nervous, and turned to Maki, who seemed to be rather impatient. “I don’t know. I guess it does depend a bit on what Kaito wants… I also really don’t want to have to explain this to the fire department..”——Or, somehow, Kaito gets stuck up a tree. He may or may not know how to get down.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki & Momota Kaito, Harukawa Maki & Momota Kaito & Saihara Shuichi, Harukawa Maki & Saihara Shuichi, Momota Kaito & Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: August 2020 Server Gift Exchange





	Wondering ‘bout the ground below

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sorryiforgotmyusername](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorryiforgotmyusername/gifts).



> Yeah, this is for a gift exchange run by Tox’s server. This was really fun, especially considering the fact that this is the first time I’ve written for a gift exchange. Thanks for running it!

It was a nice day, with bright sunny skies and only a small amount of clouds that got interesting to look at if he got really bored. The birds were chirping and the wind whistled from where he sat. He was pretty sure he could see sprouting flowers from where he was. Ah, the wonders of mid-spring. It was even more noticeable to Kaito when he was stuck in a tree, with very little else to do.

“How?” Was all Maki had asked when she’d found him sprawled across the tree branches, Shuichi following behind her- Maki’s tone flat and filled with annoyance. Her eyes were narrowed, and though Kaito couldn’t exactly see very well from his far off height, he was sure that she was glaring at him.

Shuichi’s eyes were also narrowed as he looked up at Kaito, though it was probably more in confusion than anything else. Kaito’s sidekick adjusted his stance, peering up to get a better look at Kaito. He murmured something about cats.

“ _ How? _ ” Maki asked again, tone cold and sharp and filled with absolute worry. Kaito grinned at that, before remembering that Maki was still angry at him and that he should probably answer before she throws a rock at him or something.

“It was just Miu. She kind of asked me to test something, and well, it was gonna help me fly. So I thought that it would be a good experience before I make it up into space myself. Uh, it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had…”

“Yeah? No shit.”

Kaito just chuckled nervously, watching as Maki tilted her head up to meet his eyes- watching as Shuichi inspected the tree, probably hoping for a rough surface that would be easy to climb. Kaito adjusted his legs, getting out of the weird crouch that he was in before and letting his legs dangle from his seat on top of the tree, surrounded by other branches.

Shuichi, noticing his current position, warned, “Make sure to hold onto a branch. Just in case.”

“Don’cha worry, sidekick. The Luminary of the Stars isn’t one to fall!” But, Kaito had to admit that he was getting a  _ little  _ bit dizzy looking down, so he reached out and gripped one of the many sprouting branches. Just in case, like Shuichi had said.

“So, what’s the plan here?” Maki asked, though Kaito didn’t know who she was asking specifically. Probably him, considering he was the leader, but Shuichi was also incredibly smart, “Should we call the fire department and wait for them to get him down? Like a housepet.”

“Hey! I’m not some lame animal! I can get down myself.”

Shuichi just laughed awkwardly, if a little nervous, and turned to Maki, who seemed to be rather impatient. “I don’t know. I guess it  _ does _ depend a bit on what Kaito wants… I also really don’t want to have to explain this to the fire department..”

“So what are we supposed to do? Wait until he finds some bravery hidden up in the tree so he can jump down without panicking like a child.”

“I’m pretty sure most people would be a little bit scared if they had to climb down a tree.”

Maki scoffed.

“I’m not scared! Not at all!”

“Really?”

Shuichi looked between both of them, one standing firmly on the ground and the other clutching tightly to a tree, “I don’t know if you should provoke him. He might fall down, and if he breaks anything it’ll take a while to get help in place full of nothing but trees. Also, well, there's a 50/50 chance that Kaito actually  _ can  _ climb down trees.”

“You’re giving him too much credit with that fifty/fifty…”

Kaito huffed, annoyed at Maki’s constant doubting that seemed to be getting more and more frequent (whether or not those doubts were deserved didn’t matter at all), “I could jump down right now, if I wanted to!”

“Oh really? Well then, I guess you should get down. Right now.” She glared.

Kaito panicked, he couldn’t just let his sidekicks think that this was a moment of weakness- let alone a moment of weakness that he said he didn’t have. Now he needed a good excuse. “Well, you know, it’s hard to get such a good view most of the time. Might as well make the most of it and wait till the stars come out. Uh… you guys should stay with me!”

Maki pouted, mumbling a “Typical.”

Shuichi just gave Kaito a patient smile, like he knew that he was just fed a clumsy excuse but was humoring him anyway. They both settled down at the bottom of the tree, right next to each other. Looking down at the scene, Kaito couldn’t help but feel a little bit lonely. Not that he would tell anybody that!

“Maybe you guys could… come up here?”

Shuichi glanced up, giving him a weird look, “Uh, I don’t think that’s the best idea, Kaito. I don’t even think I can climb a tree.”

Maki didn’t even look at him, “I’m not climbing up a tree for you- come down here if you want to be near us.”

Kaito winced, “B-but wouldn’t it be an interesting experience?”

“I’ve climbed a tree before.” Was all Maki said.

“Which means it’ll be easy for you to get up here!”

“I’m not climbing the tree.”

“Maybe you could help Shuichi up here, then.”

“I-I really don’t think that’s a good idea…”

“And besides, I don’t know how I’d get two people down a tree. One’s enough.”

“Hey! I already said that I can get down myself. My bro believes me, right?”

Shuichi’ looked up at Kaito, eyes wide from being asked such a pointed question, he shrugged, saying, “Fifty/fifty.”

Kaito simply grumbled in response, deciding to change the subject to something that had been bothering him since his sidekicks had found him. “How’d you guys even find me? Did you just… I don’t know… stumble across me?”

Maki tsk’d under her breath, “Obviously not. We’re not idiots who just wander around when we can’t find somebody. First we tried to call you, but you didn’t answer your phone.” She huffed.

Kaito chuckled, “Yeah, I think that… I may have dropped it when I went flying into the tree.”

“And then we caught wind that you were stuck in a tree from Kokichi. I thought he was lying at first, but he just kept laughing about it, so it seemed like there was a chance of it being true.” Shuichi continued, “He didn’t tell us any context, but he did direct us in this direction- and, well, Maki threatened him with… a lot of violent things… so I didn’t really think he would get us lost or anything.”

Kaito hummed thoughtfully as he listened to the explanation, “Huh. Isn’t it kind of weird that he pointed you towards me? Heh, I guess the guy really does care!”

“Or he just wanted to embarrass you in front of us.” Maki deadpanned, causing Kaito to cross his arms in disagreement.

“You need to quit being so negative about people, Maki! There’s more to people than their worst parts- it’s just a mask.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Maki murmured, so quiet that Kaito almost couldn’t hear her.

“Don’t worry about Kokichi, okay?” Shuichi tried placate, having heard the exact same argument many times in the past half year of knowing them, “While I’m sure something may be going on with Kokichi, I don’t think it’s a good idea to speculate. Let him deal with everything at his own pace, okay?”

“Isn’t it your job to speculate?” Maki said, though she didn’t argue further.

The mood dulled a bit, and for a moment no one spoke. In the small stretch of silence, Kaito could hear the innocently chipper sound of birds, and he felt a light brush of wind sift through the trees. 

“It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?” Asked Shuichi, politely putting the silence to an end.

“Sure is, sidekick! The perfect day to g-grk,” Kaito caught himself before saying ‘get stuck in a tree’, not wanting to accidentally reveal that he didn’t actually know what he was doing, “to be  _ on  _ a tree.” He grinned, though his two sidekicks couldn’t see it.

Maki groaned, “Isn’t resorting to weather talk a bad sign? One saying that we should leave. Right now.”

The sun was shifting in the sky, causing a bright light to shine hotly on Kaito’s eyes. He raised his arm to cover them. “But just think about the nighttime! If it’s beautiful right now, then think about it later.”

“Since when do you think about the future?”

“I always do!”

Shuichi cut in, “Ah, Kaito… you’re stuck in a tree.”

“That was for, uh, scientific purposes. And, I’m not stuck!”

“Are you just going to volunteer for anything related to space, whether or not it gets you killed?”

“No.” Kaito crossed his arms, “This was perfectly safe. I’m not hurt or anything.”

“Yeah, but…” Maki paused, grumbling.

“But, we were worried about you.” Shuichi finished, nudging Maki in the shoulder gently.

“Yeah. That.”

Kaito chuckled a bit nervously, loud enough that he was sure his sidekicks could hear it from way underneath the tree. It was a bit nice to have people to depend on, but he did feel kind of bad for making them worry about him.

“Don’t worry about it! This is probably a one-time thing.”

His declaration was met with a “It better” from Maki and a “Hopefully” from Shuichi. Kaito was sure that if he was below the tree with his sidekicks, he would’ve wrapped his arms around both their shoulders. Man, he really wished he wasn’t stuck in a goddamn tree.

Well, there was an easy out in just admitting that he was stuck, but he was too strong to admit defeat. His sidekicks didn’t need to see him in such a moment of weakness! Instead, he endured the lack of physical affection around him, knowing that he would be able to sit next to his sidekicks later- once he was down from the stupid tree.

“You guys should have more faith in me,” he’d said, feet swinging from his seat on the branches, one of his hands still out to steady him, “I am the leader, after all!”

Kaito saw the meaningful look that Shuichi had shot at him, tilting his head back, and looking straight up. Maki fidgeted with her hair.

“We really were worried.” Shuichi said. 

Maki huffed, pointedly not looking up at Kaito. “I guess we were. But only because we can’t trust your idiot-self to not get into any danger.” She knocked on the tree she was leaning on, “And we weren’t exactly wrong.”

“I’m not in danger!” Kaito refuted, puffing out his chest, “I told you! I know what I’m doing.”

Maki snorted, “And again, I’m telling you-“

“Woah…” Shuichi interrupted their argument with awed pointing, “Look at the stars. They’re clearer than usual. It must be the more rural area that we’re in.”

Kaito grinned, looking up to see the darkening sky, and the scattering of washed out stars. Slowly, the half moon faded into view- and he couldn’t help but feel how cold it had become. He tried not to shiver. 

He hadn’t realized how much time had actually passed. 

Silently, they watched the sky turn darker and darker, until the stars really had started twinkling, like tiny, scattered suns. All isolated, yet together- like some odd kinship within the sky.

Kaito breathed in the night’s atmosphere- the nice, chilly air that seemed almost weirdly magical. “I told you that the night sky would be beautiful here.”

“I would be impressed if you didn’t have any ulterior motives.” Said Maki.

Shuichi didn’t say anything, but Kaito could hear how he hummed contently as he watched the stars between the tree branches. And, despite Maki’s complaining earlier, he could tell that she was mystified by the sight, probably not used to the stargazing.

Kaito also looked up, enraptured by the shining vision of the constellations. 

It was beautiful.

And, well, perhaps he’d gotten  _ a bit _ too comfortable on his branch. Maybe he’d probably leaned  _ a bit  _ too forward. Maybe he’d forgotten that he had to keep balance for  _ just  _ a second.

The point was, Kaito fell off of the- relatively tall- tree.

And it was incredibly terrifying.

Because, well, there was a distinct difference between being launched towards something and falling down to his doom. Especially when he’d consented to only one of those things.

Really, no one could blame Kaito if he screamed (which he totally didn’t do).

He heard Shuichi shout his name, as the shuffling of dead leaves as his sidekicks probably tried not to get crushed by his falling body. Blearily, he concluded that this landing was most likely going to hurt. A lot.

Kaito braced himself to hit the ground, eyes squeezed shut and arms flailing to catch something.

Until he’d fallen right into Maki’s arms. Very literally.

Kaito cracked an eye open. How the hell had she caught him?

“So, you’re not in any danger, huh?” Maki teased, letting him down from her arms.

Kaito just waved her off, catching his breath and wishing that his heart would stop racing (falling off the tree wasn’t  _ that  _ scary, he totally wasn’t scared enough to warrant such high blood pressure). “I was… I was fine.”

But Shuichi had just patted his shoulder, giving him a resigned angry look that he saved for special occasions like almost falling off a tree. Maki simply rolled her eyes, sitting down again- back leaned against the tree that Kaito had just fallen out of, head tilted towards the night sky.

He watched her, confused, before he grinned widely. She wanted to keep watching the stars. Kaito glanced at Shuichi, who had moved to Maki’s side. He gave Kaito an inviting smile.

That was all he needed before Kaito cut between his two sidekicks, sitting in between them- Maki on his left and Shuichi to his right. He both his arms over their shoulders, pulled them close and asked, “Wanna learn the constellations?”

Shuchi just chuckled, eyes glimmering. Maki smiled shyly.

  
  


It was nice, he thought, sudden;y glad that he had fallen off the tree.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked the gift, Jay! It was fun to write, despite my writer’s block. Platonic training trio is just my everything, and writing about Kaito getting stuck in a tree was a oneshot idea that I’d been rolling around in my head. So thanks for enabling me!
> 
> Also, I’ve never written Kaito’s pov before, but first time for everything, I suppose.


End file.
